Enterprise Document Management Software: The Key to Office Evolution

If you use a Windows folder structure to organize and manage your files, you’re hunting tigers with a butter knife. And, unfortunately, the only way this makes you a tiger with stripes of your own is if someone is sketching you as the creature on a piece of paper.

You’re just a paper tiger to your competition. You may exist in your market, but you’re not an actual threat, and this remains true regardless of whether your competition gauges you as a threat.

Just as tigers once ruled the jungle before we caged them in zoos, you ruled your professional life until outdated information management mediums rendered you ineffectual at your work—shackling you to your desk and relegating you to the horrible realms of mediocrity.

It’s happened to some of the best and brightest of us, and although a problem that needs fixing, is nothing to be ashamed of.

But there are freedoms in the working world you can discover with the right solutions, provided you pick the right vendor and study how to make the most of its offerings. If you ever catch yourself wishing you could have “gotten more done today,” then enterprise document management software is a necessary step in the right direction.

As a technology finding a foothold in compliance-intensive industries, Enterprise document management software not only plays a significant role in the evolution of the office space, but also in the evolution of human progress—which is, in large part, now typified by the successes we define and achieve through our careers.

Let’s take a closer look at what life used to look like at the dawn of humankind, as it’ll tell us a bit more about what a lack of enterprise document management software can do to an organization.

Although one may feel the analogy is too outdated to remain relevant today, recent research conducted by Dr. A.K. Pradeep has revealed hominid brains have not changed much since the beginning of our species, so the analogy still applies.

Here’s what a normal routine used to look like: Do you see any commonalities between what you do in a given day and the below example?

The Beginning of the Need for Enterprise Document Management Software Begins with this Story

At the dawn humankind, most hunters spent their days waking with empty stomachs, aware and weary of other animals that would attempt to prey on them.

Because of this threat, they left their makeshift tents to go hunting so they could learn how to fend for themselves in the most feral and primitive of environments.

If humans were going to be able to defend themselves against such attacks, they needed to consume food to maintain their strength, and this required hunting.

At the time, homo sapiens were using the best tools they could find to complete the hunting tasks. In fact, the use of tools is noted by author and historian, Will Durant, as being one of humankind’s greatest accomplishments.

It is the complexity of modern office technology and the time pressures to achieve other tasks unrelated to learning that stymy any implementation of solutions that could successfully replace legacy systems.

But the office environment remains as cutthroat as ever. Layoffs happen regularly and in all industries, and no employee is safe from being let go.

Essentially, the do or die stakes with which human beings entered the world still apply today, and enterprise document management software is one of simplest ways to ensure you do, not die.

In our most primitive days, we couldn’t afford to forego using the best tools to survive, because, quite frankly, we felt more like we had to fend for ourselves and didn’t have the luxury of falling back in to one of many safety nets society has provided for workers who do not successfully eat what they kill in the modern office environment.

These safety nets are illusory. Do not become comfortable dreaming about the safety a nonexistent net will provide you. Rather, prevent the fall by getting ahead of the curve with the tools that will save your productivity and, therefore, your job.

Today’s Routine is No Different, But We’re Using Worse Tools for the Challenge at Hand

In this analogy, we find the underpinnings of our roots as human beings still relevant today, although we are behind the curve in discovering exactly what we need to survive in the workplace for two main reasons:

The complexity of markets, competition, and business

The delay of business adoption of enterprise technologies to account for these changes

Enterprise document management software is a modern digital technology that serves as the mechanism for business success, but it remains drastically underutilized.

John Mancini, president of nonprofit organization, AIIM (Association of Imaging and Information Management), notes that there have been five eras of managing the people/process/information intersection, and we are currently in the content management era—the most advanced of the 5 stages, but our adoption models are still regressive.

One of Mancini’s key findings in a recent AIIM report suggests that IT people feel they are unable to “keep up with the demands of business,” and feel that people within organizations are working around them instead of working with them.

This is yet another byproduct of technology under-utilization outside IT departments, and it is crippling productivity on both macroeconomic and micro-economic scales.

If You Use a Windows Folder Structure for Files, You’re Hunting with a Butter Knife: Why Enterprise Document Management Software is a Spear

Nobody was stupid enough to hunt their prey with a butter knife at the dawn of humankind, but relying on a Windows folder structure to manage information in your office is the modern-day equivalent of such a travesty.

And, one of the reasons humankind has prevailed and proliferated is because of the time we took to hone our tools and overcome our physical environment with intelligence.

This required careful thought, planning, and training. And the adoption of enterprise document management software is no different.

If workers want to eat what they kill, they can’t depend on the organizations in which they work to show them how to do it. They must fend for themselves.

They must figure it out if they want to play not just a bigger role in the evolution of the office, but also the evolution of the progress of humankind in the workforce.

If you want an easier way to remove legacy technology from your company and bring your office into the 21st century, speak with one of our business efficiency experts today or fill out the form on this page to speak with one of our business efficiency experts.